TFA - 2 - Speeder Instrumentation

Racing along the flat desert floor, she allowed the speeder’s perceptors to guide her between endless rows and piles of ruined starcraft, obsolete or fatally damaged military equipment, civilian mechanicals that had outlived their prescribed lifetime, and even long-downed Imperial vessels. No one visited here. No one came to take inventory or write history. In these times there was no nostalgia for death: especially not for that of machines.

Instrumentation blinked. Barrier ahead: too much wreckage through which to maneuver. She knew the spot. Though going over would use more power, at this junction the only alternative was a wide and potentially dangerous detour. At least at altitude, she knew, there would be the benefit of cooler air.

Lifting, the speeder rose over the crumpled metal before it, soaring to a necessary height. For the hell of it, she executed a barrel roll; a small moment of exhilaration in an otherwise humdrum existence. By the time she came out of it, Niima Outpost was plainly visible just ahead. Niima: center of the galaxy, repository of manifold cultures, offering to its myriad inhabitants a never-ending succession of entertainment, education, and enjoyable distractions.